The present invention relates to the field of transmission of content, and more particularly relates to the field of the transmission of content from mobile devices to other devices through a network.
The increasing use of mobile devices connected to each other and other devices through networks has led to searches for solutions to problems associated with communication between these devices. One type of common mobile device employs the Wireless Application Protocol (“WAP”) to allow the communication of information to and from the mobile device.
The WAP is a secure protocol that allows users real-time access to information using handheld wireless devices, including mobile phones, pagers, two-way radios, smartphones and other devices. WAP supports most wireless networks, including CDPD, CDMA, GSM, PDC, PHS, TDMA, FLEX, ReFLEX, iDEN, TETRA, DECT, DataTAC, and Mobitex. WAP is supported by nearly all current operating systems (e.g., PalmOS, EPOC, Windows CE, FLEXOS, OS/9, and JavaOS).
WAP devices having displays and access to the Internet run microbrowsers which are browsers having small file sizes that are able to operate under the low memory constraints of handheld devices and the low-bandwidth constraints of most wireless networks supporting handheld devices. The Wireless Markup Language (“WML”), which has been specially created for small screens and navigation without a keyboard, is the markup language for WAP.
WAP also supports WMLScript, which is a simplified version of JavaScript that minimizes demands on memory and the processor. WML and WMLScript together constitute the Wireless Application Environment (“WAE”). In this document, a device employing a microbrowser and supporting WML and/or WMLScript will be denoted using the term “WAPenabled device.”
WML is the analog in WAP of Hypertext Markup Language (“HTML”), which is used to create and present content on the World Wide Web (“WWW” or “Web”). A WML file, which is analogous to a Web page in HTML, is structured as a “deck” of one or more “cards”. A card corresponds to an atomic unit of displayable information in WML. A WML file (i.e., a deck) is referenced using a Uniform Resource Locator (“URL”), similar to the way HTML files (e.g., Web pages) are referenced. The user interface for WML is created using a deck of cards. WML also includes methods for implementing access control for content.
The NTT DoCoMo i-mode is another protocol that allows users real-time access to information using handheld wireless devices, including mobile phones, pagers, two-way radios, smartphones and other devices. The NTT DoCoMo i-mode (“i-mode”) service is not based on WAP; instead of WML, i-mode uses a simplified version of HTML called Compact HTML (“cHTML”). cHTML is actually a subset of HTML that is intended for devices with slower connection speeds, like mobile devices. In particular, the resource intensive abilities of HTML (e.g., rendering tables and frames) have been left out of cHTML. Thus, cHTML allows i-mode web pages to download more quickly to mobile devices running an i-mode microbrowser (“i-mode-enabled device”).
Because i-mode web sites are written using versions of HTML, such sites can also be accessed and rendered by devices running ordinary Internet browsers. This contrasts with the situation for WAP web sites, which cannot be rendered by devices running ordinary Internet browsers.
When a user of an i-mode-enabled device bookmarks a web page, the title of the web page becomes the title of the bookmark. Because i-mode was originally designed for use in Japan, i-mode-enabled devices (including the microbrowser for such devices) display Japanese text, although English text is also supported. The i-mode service uses S-JIS character encoding, GIF formatted images, and half-width kana characters. The microbrowsers usually have a title bar with icons at the top of a LCD screen. The user can manipulate the icons to access various services. A text screen below the title bar can display text messages and data.
The term “WAP/i-mode-enabled device” will be used to denote a device that is WAP-enabled and/or i-mode-enabled. From this point on, the term “deck” will be used to denote a WAP deck, and/or an i-mode web page. The term “card” will be used to denote an atomic unit of displayable information in WAP and/or i-mode.
One deficiency of WAP/i-mode-enabled devices is that they do not allow for a convenient way of sharing content with other devices on the network. One known method for sharing content on a WAP/i-mode-enabled device requires that the user transmit the URL corresponding to displayed content to another user within a message. If an e-mail message were used to transmit the URL, the user would have to manually type the URL into the e-mail message using the microbrowser. In addition to expending effort in having to manually enter the URL, the user generally is not able to observe the content corresponding to the URL and manually enter the URL at the same time. Also, by composing a message for manual entry of the URL, the user will have had to access another URL (i.e., the URL associated with composing e-mail messages) and will probably no longer see the displayed content for the URL she wanted to send. Alternatively, if a voice-mail message were used to transmit the URL, the user would have to dictate the URL into the voice-mail message. Other media for transmitting the URL also require the user to manually insert the URL into a message. Such manual insertion is inconvenient and difficult using a microbrowser. WAP/i-mode-enabled devices do not have any kind of copy and paste capability, so several manual steps would be needed to transmit the URL or the URL content shown on the device.
Additionally, even if the URL corresponding to content displayed on a WAP/i-mode-enabled device is transmitted in this manner, the recipient will only be able to access the most current content corresponding to the URL, because the content may be changed by the entity controlling the Web site corresponding to the URL. For example, if the content corresponding to the URL is updated or changed during the period beginning with the time that the URL is sent in a message by the user of the WAP/i-mode-enabled device and ending with the time the recipient accesses the URL, then the recipient will access content different from that originally intended to be transmitted by the user of the WAP/i-mode-enabled device. In many cases, the user may desire that the recipient view the same content that the user views at a given instant of time.
The Excite service (on the Internet at www.excite.com) has a WAP portal that allows WAP-enabled devices to access various content sources including general news, business news, sports news, etc. The Excite QuickCut feature allows users of WAP-enabled devices to send messages including content in WML cards or decks to multiple e-mail addresses. However, the Excite QuickCut feature requires modification of the WML card or deck to include a QuickCut link at the bottom of the WML card or deck. Thus, for the user to be able to send content corresponding to a URL using the Excite QuickCut feature, the content corresponding to the content must have been modified to include the QuickCut feature. Because this modification must be done for each and every URL for which the corresponding content is desired to be sent, this method is cumbersome and inadequate. Furthermore, the Excite QuickCut feature does not allow the transmission of the URL (as opposed to the content corresponding to the URL) or a modified URL.
Thus, there is a need for a convenient method for sharing content displayed on a WAP/i-mode-enabled device with other devices across a network. Further, this method should be independent of and separate from the content applications viewed on the WAP/i-mode-enabled device; i.e., the method for transmitting content corresponding to a deck should not require modification of the deck to enable the functionality of transmitting the corresponding content. Moreover, there is a need for ensuring that the content accessed by the recipient is the same as that intended to be shared by the transmitter.